Speaker 1: Are you doing. Welcome to the Rugby League Coach Podcast,
Speaker 1: episode two hundred and fifty six and we're in season
Speaker 1: four of it. My name is Lee Addison. Good morning
Speaker 1: from quite chilly Brisbane this morning. And on that note,
Speaker 1: I just want to apologize again that this podcast is
Speaker 1: out later than it's very early morning normal slot. That's
Speaker 1: because of my work schedules at the moment. It's just
Speaker 1: getting a little bit hard for me to record before
Speaker 1: the time that I'm recording now, which is Monday morning
Speaker 1: Brisbane time. I've already just recorded SUPERIK three sixty with
Speaker 1: John Davidson and I'm now recording this obviously. Look, I
Speaker 1: want to hear from you. If you were a regular
Speaker 1: listener who listened at four am, five am Australian Eastern
Speaker 1: Standard Time or whatever the time zone is at the time,
Speaker 1: and if this has really affected you and your listening cycles,
Speaker 1: please let me know. Get in touch at Rugby League
Speaker 1: Coach on Facebook or Instagram, send me a message or
Speaker 1: rite underneath one of the posts, or email me admin
Speaker 1: at Rugby League Coach dot com to tay you. Because
Speaker 1: I can't emphasize enough. I do this podcast for you.
Speaker 1: I do this podcast for coaches and anybody interested in
Speaker 1: the long term development of rugby league in terms of
Speaker 1: beyond just the NRL and Super League. I'm the owner
Speaker 1: of Rugby League coach dot Com dotey you. I set
Speaker 1: that up because I was so frustrated that there was
Speaker 1: a lack of resources for rugby league coaches. I'm a
Speaker 1: big reader. I've got over six hundred books at home,
Speaker 1: and I think I left about two hundred in the
Speaker 1: UK when I moved over to Australia. So I think
Speaker 1: I'm a reader and I spend at least one hour
Speaker 1: every day reading something at least and I was so
Speaker 1: frustrated at the lack of rugby league coaching material, so
Speaker 1: much so that I set up Rugby League coach dot
Speaker 1: Com to te you. Within two years, it became the
Speaker 1: world's biggest online rugby league coaching resource. I've also been
Speaker 1: a coach mentor, a coach educator and a coach consultant
Speaker 1: for so much of the last decade. And I also
Speaker 1: wrote Rugby League Coach Thirteen Game Changing Conversations to Transform
Speaker 1: Your Coaching and released it in January twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: So everything I do is about helping coaches and I've
Speaker 1: never been happier in my rugby league life in terms
Speaker 1: of helping other coaches. My water consumption is significant because
Speaker 1: I just love water, and my water consumption is sponsored
Speaker 1: by the Global League Network you can find on Global
Speaker 1: League Dot Network. And will say, however, they probably haven't
Speaker 1: sponsored the drink and consuming today because I'm recording in
Speaker 1: the morning, I'm having a cup of good old Yorkshire tea.
Speaker 1: There'll be people in Yorkshire right now who'll be going
Speaker 1: what a legendary is drinking Yorkshire tea. There'll be many
Speaker 1: people outside of Yorkshire too, thinking that it probably is
Speaker 1: the best tea on earth. I've got a question last
Speaker 1: week from somebody in clublandswer do you just riff this podcast?
Speaker 1: And basically yes, I do. I put some ideas on
Speaker 1: paper in terms of running sheet, but I just have
Speaker 1: little notes. I e. Say, you know, talk about this
Speaker 1: now and then I'll just pontificate for however long. But
Speaker 1: some parts obviously I'm reading from a sort of script
Speaker 1: as well, so it just varies. But yet mostly I
Speaker 1: just if this podcast. I did a session last week
Speaker 1: with the team. I won't say you they are or
Speaker 1: where it was or anything like that. And one of
Speaker 1: their significant traits, if you like, is that they struggle
Speaker 1: to concentrate for the full set of something. So for example,
Speaker 1: if they did six tackles on tackle shields, the first
Speaker 1: two would be good, and then number three and four
Speaker 1: they just do it because they have to, and then
Speaker 1: the coach gets upset, and then they do five and
Speaker 1: six a bit harder, and it's actually translated into their
Speaker 1: game throughout the year. And this just shows you how
Speaker 1: important standards are. It shows you how important keeping on
Speaker 1: top of things is. They are playing games now where
Speaker 1: they'll play well for five ten minutes and then drop
Speaker 1: off for five ten minutes, and couple that with some
Speaker 1: mental difficulty and you'll know this. You'll know you know
Speaker 1: teams of younger players who get down on each other
Speaker 1: if they if things go wrong. And combine that with
Speaker 1: the attitude of of only focusing for say two tackles
Speaker 1: and then and then number three and number four not
Speaker 1: being up to scratch. Well, that's manifested in the game.
Speaker 1: So what's the counter to that. It's about It's about
Speaker 1: making sure that as a coach your standards are ultra high.
Speaker 1: I e. If I ask you to do six tackles,
Speaker 1: I want tackle one to be good and the best
Speaker 1: you can do, and then I want tackle two to
Speaker 1: be better than tackle one, and I want number three
Speaker 1: to be better than number two, and so on and
Speaker 1: so forth. Not the mentality that I've got six tackles
Speaker 1: to do. And this can be in a set as well.
Speaker 1: Six tackles, let's let's tackle. Well, let's kill the ruck.
Speaker 1: Yeah we've done that. Yeah we've done it. And then
Speaker 1: just the next two plays and four the opposition get
Speaker 1: a ruttle on because you're not concentrating the same. So
Speaker 1: it's a concentration thing. So much of this game is
Speaker 1: about mentality, about staying in the contest for as long
Speaker 1: as you can. And I think that's why when you
Speaker 1: look at younger teams, that's why they can play well
Speaker 1: one week and look like a completely different team the
Speaker 1: opposite week. Although that seems to be happening in the
Speaker 1: NRL quite a lot these days too, but that's a
Speaker 1: different issue. But even all the way up to under twenties,
Speaker 1: when we had the National under twenties, the amount of
Speaker 1: times of scoreboard was fifty to thirty or forty to
Speaker 1: twenty or something like that. And it's because of concentration,
Speaker 1: as well as ability to play on both sides of
Speaker 1: the football, offense and defense. I'm going to talk through
Speaker 1: twenty principles I try to live by, but they form
Speaker 1: a lot of my coaching philosophy too, and my coaching principles.
Speaker 1: Some of them have collected over the years through coaching teaching,
Speaker 1: but quite frankly, a lot of this has come from
Speaker 1: making mistakes, but also learning from some pretty awesome people.
Speaker 1: I don't claim to get these things right every day,
Speaker 1: so I'm certainly not talking down to you, and so
Speaker 1: you must be like me. This is what we try
Speaker 1: and do every day, right, So it's all we're always
Speaker 1: learning every day out but we're always trying to get
Speaker 1: better every day. That's the whole theme of this Rugby
Speaker 1: lea Coach podcast, which has been telling you this for
Speaker 1: the last four years. Number One, don't follow the herd.
Speaker 1: Don't believe something just because everyone else does. The best
Speaker 1: coaches think for themselves. I'll give you a perfect example.
Speaker 1: I'll give you two perfect examples. As Hazla got his
Speaker 1: forwards passing in twenty twelve to twenty thirteen ish, now
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everybody has teams were forwards try
Speaker 1: and pass. My question is why I just took a
Speaker 1: swig at my tea. Then. I don't know if you've
Speaker 1: heard it. I apologize if you did. But it's just
Speaker 1: so inviting. Why does everybody pass? Why do well forward pass?
Speaker 1: Some of them pass and they can't do it. I
Speaker 1: always say, if edrem Mawley was running at you, you'd
Speaker 1: be glad if he passed. Right. Nobody challenges why. I'll
Speaker 1: give you another one now, the way shape has changed,
Speaker 1: attacking shape. I'll tell you what I coach, touch line
Speaker 1: to touch line shape. Field balance. Everybody spread across the
Speaker 1: field and in that field balance. If you imagine you're nine,
Speaker 1: you're seven, and you're six, and yes, I do play
Speaker 1: with four pivots some time, seven, six, thirteen and one right,
Speaker 1: But anyway, if you imagine the nine, seven and six,
Speaker 1: If you imagine the nine is at the front to
Speaker 1: play the ball, the seven and six are in front
Speaker 1: of everyone else. That leaves you ten players. They can
Speaker 1: have a channel each divide the field. That's sixty eight
Speaker 1: meters by ten. That means everybody has about six point
Speaker 1: eight meters nearly seven meters to manipulate side to side
Speaker 1: as long as they're in that channel. And the key
Speaker 1: thing is if a fullback came across and went into
Speaker 1: somebody else's channel, then that somebody else has to go
Speaker 1: into the foot What was the fullbacks channel? Right, So
Speaker 1: let's just think on those principles for a moment, and
Speaker 1: for the full back you can also say the look
Speaker 1: as well. There's plenty of room to manipulate opposition defenses
Speaker 1: within that. That's how I coach football. Basically, we've had
Speaker 1: an outbreak in the last I would say five or
Speaker 1: six years of NURL teams having a shape where they
Speaker 1: go into out they sort of if you look at
Speaker 1: wings and centers now, for some reason, they do a
Speaker 1: forty five meter angle, a forty five degree angle, sorry,
Speaker 1: almost towards the corner flag so often. Well, my first
Speaker 1: question to that was why. I asked my old palell
Speaker 1: Ronaldo Mulatalo, my old player, why do they do that?
Speaker 1: And he sort of explained it to me, but I
Speaker 1: didn't quite get what he was saying. It's basically to
Speaker 1: keep the opposition getting this to your angles. I think
Speaker 1: I'm a deep rugby league thinker. I think two hundred
Speaker 1: or something podcasts will express that and I can't get
Speaker 1: my head around why teams do this all the time. Anyway.
Speaker 1: I've had people right to me and try and explain,
Speaker 1: and it just I still can't get my head around it.
Speaker 1: There are teams in juniors now try and get just
Speaker 1: copying it, not questioning, not challenging, not contemplating anything else
Speaker 1: was trying to do it. And I know of a
Speaker 1: team that did this that I used to coach star
Speaker 1: The new coach did this and there were bottom of
Speaker 1: the ladder or near the bottom of the ladder, not
Speaker 1: winning anything. And then a few assistants got into the
Speaker 1: coach's ear and said, you need to go back to
Speaker 1: the way Addison did it, get that shape. And they've
Speaker 1: had two of the closest games, including one drawer and
Speaker 1: one very close loss, in the last two weeks. And
Speaker 1: these assistants are putting it down to that simple shape.
Speaker 1: And that's because you shouldn't follow the herd, do what's
Speaker 1: best for your team, do what you think is best.
Speaker 1: So they sanning out shape as I like to call it,
Speaker 1: and the middles passing just because they should challenge why
Speaker 1: are you doing that? Are your middles capable of passing
Speaker 1: the football? Or should they just run. What do the
Speaker 1: opposition not want you to do? At any point? They
Speaker 1: probably want your toughest middles to pass the ball. Kickoffs
Speaker 1: is another one. A few people do short drop out
Speaker 1: or short kickoffs, and now everybody does them, no challenge,
Speaker 1: No why are we doing this? Even though the long
Speaker 1: kickoff we used to go? Well everyone. The thing you
Speaker 1: do in rugby league is you kick off to the
Speaker 1: seven or the six and then they send somebody in.
Speaker 1: We just copy each other. The most important question is
Speaker 1: to ask why why do we do what we do?
Speaker 1: And this is in anything, any strategy you come up with,
Speaker 1: any tactic, you come up with the second most important
Speaker 1: question after why is what if? And what if looks
Speaker 1: at the variables? Are you if we do this? What
Speaker 1: will the reaction be? Right? So, I don't know. I'll
Speaker 1: use a very political example that's the easiest to explain.
Speaker 1: America tried to build a wall between it and Mexico
Speaker 1: under Donald Trump. In his first term, Joe Biden canceled
Speaker 1: that war. The what if was the jobs that were
Speaker 1: lost from building the wall. Right, we want to send
Speaker 1: troops into a battle in a war zone, But what
Speaker 1: if is how many people are we going to lose
Speaker 1: in that war. In that goal, we want to kick
Speaker 1: the ball short. The what ifs are what if we
Speaker 1: don't make the ten? What if the opposition get the
Speaker 1: ball versus we're kicking off long? And the what ifs
Speaker 1: are who we're kicking it to and who's going to
Speaker 1: get the ball. Maybe the truth is somewhere in between.
Speaker 1: So we've got to challenge and we've got to ask why,
Speaker 1: and then we have to ask what if. Number Two
Speaker 1: thing I try and live with is develop wonderful friendships,
Speaker 1: but be careful of acquaintances. And if you're a coach,
Speaker 1: you'll be intuitive and instinctive about this because you've been
Speaker 1: a coaching job. Some of you will have been parachuted
Speaker 1: into a club and been given assistance or managers, or
Speaker 1: you might be managing upwards in terms of committee members
Speaker 1: or directors or something like that. There's a difference between
Speaker 1: people who genuinely want you to succeed and there's others
Speaker 1: who will want you to to succeed as long as
Speaker 1: you do succeed, and they will show friendship until it
Speaker 1: goes wrong. Now, there was another swig of the team
Speaker 1: yorksire tea. I'm working with a club that I've worked for,
Speaker 1: it's going up to two years now and I'm mental
Speaker 1: coaching staffs and we absolutely come from a place of support.
Speaker 1: I do this at a few clubs. It comes from
Speaker 1: a place of support. So it's genuine support and genuine friendship.
Speaker 1: And yes, of course there are conversations at times around
Speaker 1: we need this to be better, we need that to
Speaker 1: be better, or maybe we can't get this outcome with
Speaker 1: this person or that person, but it's in a blanket
Speaker 1: of support. Primarily, i e. The friendship and the care
Speaker 1: factor comes first. You have other organizations where it's all
Speaker 1: about the outcome, and there's been some very successful organizations
Speaker 1: that have done that in sport. Just remember not everyone
Speaker 1: who smiles at you as your friend. Investing quality relationships
Speaker 1: not quantity. Number three is a big one. Be honest.
Speaker 1: People can deal with honesty. What they struggle with is
Speaker 1: inconsistency and uncertainty. Uncertainty and I always remember my first
Speaker 1: real boss in my working life was the Lake Morris
Speaker 1: Lynd's are the old chairman of Wigan Warriors. And he
Speaker 1: said to me, and I won't try and do his accent.
Speaker 1: I was a young man. He said, Lee, your problem
Speaker 1: is you want to be liked by everyone. Always choose
Speaker 1: respect over popularity, and I've never forgotten that lesson. And
Speaker 1: I've learned over time that if you tell people the
Speaker 1: truth with kindness wherever you can, but sometimes you just
Speaker 1: have to be blunt, it builds trust. Long term. People
Speaker 1: know where this stands with you, and they might push
Speaker 1: back originally because they don't like what they're hearing, but
Speaker 1: those with enough mental bandwidth, they will trust you more
Speaker 1: because you're honest. Number four, Listen intently. It's human nature.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we listen just to reply. It's human nature sometimes
Speaker 1: that we're planning our and so while somebody is talking,
Speaker 1: try and listen to understand. Players will also tell you
Speaker 1: exactly what they think you want to hear unless you
Speaker 1: give them the opportunity and the freedom and the comfort
Speaker 1: to tell you exactly how they feel and how they need,
Speaker 1: and that comes from you genuinely listening. Number five. Shine
Speaker 1: a light on other people's gifts or another way of
Speaker 1: doing that can be realize and promote what people are
Speaker 1: good at. So one of the greatest privileges I suppose
Speaker 1: for us coaches is that we're helping people be good
Speaker 1: at something or find something before they're capable of seeing
Speaker 1: it themselves or doing it themselves. And that's about finding
Speaker 1: people's strengths and saying, do you know you are good
Speaker 1: at this? And as a coacher, we're not there to
Speaker 1: help them grow and get better. Number six see rest
Speaker 1: as a productivity tool. I've worked out that I can
Speaker 1: work in a given week and I'll be fine as
Speaker 1: long as I have thirty six hours rest. And I
Speaker 1: also have different levels of working rest within the rest
Speaker 1: of the hours that aren't in thirty six. So there's
Speaker 1: some jobs that can do while I'm semi relaxed. There's
Speaker 1: other jobs where I'm in work mode. But as I've
Speaker 1: got older, I've realized that I'm not a machine, or
Speaker 1: I'll like to call myself one. I've also realized that
Speaker 1: recovery isn't laziness, and I've actually worked out that if
Speaker 1: I get that time of rest right, and for me,
Speaker 1: it's mental rest as much as anything. I need to
Speaker 1: switch off, I need to not think about certain things,
Speaker 1: or I need not to be in that zone and
Speaker 1: it actually helps you performance. Number seven. Treat everybody with respect,
Speaker 1: the cleaner, the chairman, the CEO, the first grade captain,
Speaker 1: the under eight reserve player. Treat them all the same character,
Speaker 1: and your character is revealed by how you treat people
Speaker 1: who can't do anything for you. Number eight, Try and
Speaker 1: get better with age us growing older. We're all older
Speaker 1: than when we started listening to this podcast. Right, some
Speaker 1: of you might be aging a bit quick listening to me,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Growing golder should mean we grow wiser,
Speaker 1: keep learning, keep adapting. Never become the coach who says
Speaker 1: I've always done it this way. Earlier, I talked about
Speaker 1: the way I coached shape. You have no idea how
Speaker 1: many times I've challenged that concept rather than gone no,
Speaker 1: I do it like this and that's it. Number nine.
Speaker 1: Spend time reflecting. This is huge. Some of the biggest
Speaker 1: improvements I've ever made as a coach didn't happen when
Speaker 1: I was coaching. It happened afterwards. Now that's because I
Speaker 1: have an in built review process. You know, I always
Speaker 1: analyzed what went well, what would I improve, what could
Speaker 1: I learn? But also what did I learn? And I've
Speaker 1: always been good at this naturally. I don't know why.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, but I'm just a deep thinker
Speaker 1: of these things, and I find that giving yourself time,
Speaker 1: that time to rest and reflect, that's when you really
Speaker 1: realize the lessons. I always think players sometimes get better
Speaker 1: when they've had a summer away from rugby league and
Speaker 1: then come back to it because it's almost like their
Speaker 1: conscious mind has processed all the subconscious things that we're
Speaker 1: trying to learn throughout the year. It's almost like the
Speaker 1: mind catches up. It's the same with coaching too. Sometimes
Speaker 1: you have your eu eco moments when you're not coaching right.
Speaker 1: And if you think about modern society, younger generations are
Speaker 1: pretty good at moving from one thing to the next,
Speaker 1: and they don't dwell on defeats like we used to
Speaker 1: do as coaches, for example, they just move on with why.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of positive in that too, but you've
Speaker 1: still got to analyze calmly why these things happened. Reflection
Speaker 1: turns your experience into growth, into wisdom, into learnings. Number ten.
Speaker 1: Read every day, and by reading, I mean we do
Speaker 1: so much reading all the time. If you look at
Speaker 1: your phone and read things, no matter what it is,
Speaker 1: even if you're reading somebody's crap that they write on
Speaker 1: my Facebook page. If I see another post on Insta
Speaker 1: or Facebook, what wise upon me, I got it last week?
Speaker 1: Why is upon me talking about Australian Like? How xenophobic
Speaker 1: can you be writing that? Like I have to explain
Speaker 1: I've been here twenty years. I shouldn't, I shouldn't bite
Speaker 1: into it, but it just gets to me. How disrespectful
Speaker 1: can you be? What does upon me know? Please? So
Speaker 1: even if you're just reading that, even if you're reading
Speaker 1: a newspaper online, even if you're reading a newspaper, but books,
Speaker 1: they can press decades of someone else's learning into a
Speaker 1: few hours. So if you haven't got rugblely Coach thirteen
Speaker 1: game changing conversations transform your coaching if you're not a
Speaker 1: member of rugblee coach dot com. To tay you, I
Speaker 1: can promise you that those two things pretty much everything
Speaker 1: I can offer without you being in my company, either
Speaker 1: online via a remote zoom call or something, or in
Speaker 1: person a seminar or whatever it may be, or for
Speaker 1: bump into your around the traps. The book and my
Speaker 1: online resource is literally or everything I can offer you
Speaker 1: from an experience perspective. Online there's a lot to read
Speaker 1: as well as just to watch, but you should be
Speaker 1: reading coaching things, reading leadership things, reading psychology things, reading
Speaker 1: biographies and you should never stop feeding your mind. Soon
Speaker 1: your rugby league season will end. And this podcast tends
Speaker 1: to continue, right And one of the reasons it tends
Speaker 1: to continue throughout the year is I'm constantly telling coaches
Speaker 1: after the season, now's your time to grow, Now's your
Speaker 1: times to read, Now's your time to read study this
Speaker 1: study that I can't I can't emphasize that enough. There's
Speaker 1: a reason I've got over six hundred books and there's
Speaker 1: so many things that you can read that will help
Speaker 1: your coaching, even if it doesn't say rugby league coaching
Speaker 1: on the front. My top shelf is Alex Ferguson, Brian Clough,
Speaker 1: Alex Sir Alex Ferguson football manager, Brian Cloff, football manager soccer.
Speaker 1: Sir Alex Ferguson dominated English football soccer for twenty odd years,
Speaker 1: also dominated Scotland before that. Brian Cloff, total opposite in
Speaker 1: many ways, ended up having a problem with alcohol, but
Speaker 1: he could do amazing things with his team in a
Speaker 1: very short amount of time. There was a film made
Speaker 1: about Brian Cloff and his success called I Believe in Miracles,
Speaker 1: So that probably tells you all you need to know.
Speaker 1: I can promise you that I've had more learnings about
Speaker 1: coaching from that top bookshelf than anywhere else. You should
Speaker 1: never stop feeding your mind. Number eleven, Try and lead
Speaker 1: before you're given the title. So some of us wait
Speaker 1: to be the captain before we do captain things. Leadership
Speaker 1: isn't a badge, it's a behavior. You don't need to
Speaker 1: be captain to be head coach. Your actions are an
Speaker 1: example of leading. Every single day. There's coaches out there
Speaker 1: at clubs that don't turn up on time for their team.
Speaker 1: I'm just swingeing with tea. Sorry, and at that point now,
Speaker 1: if I don't keep drinking it now, it'll get too cold,
Speaker 1: So bear with me. What are you saying to juniors
Speaker 1: if you turn up to your session that starts at
Speaker 1: five at pm, at five pm, and you're putting your
Speaker 1: cones out at five pm, so you're still pulling things
Speaker 1: out of the bag to start your session. What you're
Speaker 1: saying to your juniors there? And I know coaches that
Speaker 1: turn up later than that sometimes for that five o'clock session,
Speaker 1: and they turn up in the high vazed work gear.
Speaker 1: Sometimes doesn't take much for you to pack your club
Speaker 1: polo shirt or T shirt into your car every Tuesday morning.
Speaker 1: Thursday morning, you could leave one in there and then
Speaker 1: get out of your car and change. Now, I know
Speaker 1: in england's a bit cold to change, right, so there's
Speaker 1: nothing stopping you putting in a coat or a jumper
Speaker 1: and just making sure you look like a coach And
Speaker 1: if you can't make that five o'clock thing on time,
Speaker 1: ask for training to be later. I think that is
Speaker 1: one of the most obvious examples of leading. How do
Speaker 1: I deal with that? I make sure I'm stood where
Speaker 1: I want the players to be at the time of
Speaker 1: the start of training, and I blow the whistle and
Speaker 1: the session starts. Number twelve, never coast. Comfort is the
Speaker 1: enemy of growth. That could be quote of the week
Speaker 1: that the moment that you think that you've arrived somewhere,
Speaker 1: the moment you think you've cracked it is the moment
Speaker 1: you stop improving, the moment you stop winning. I have
Speaker 1: another saying, which is nothing fails like success. For an
Speaker 1: example of this, look at the Brisbane Broncos twenty twenty three.
Speaker 1: Within a Bees appendage of winning the NRL Grand Final
Speaker 1: against Penrith twenty twenty four. Bottom Down twenty twenty five
Speaker 1: won the NRL Grand Final, twenty twenty six not even
Speaker 1: made the finals. There is a culture problem there. Number thirteen.
Speaker 1: Don't listen to critics. Listen to people who genuinely want
Speaker 1: you to improve. And this comes back to friendships as well,
Speaker 1: doesn't it ignore those who simply enjoy tearing others down.
Speaker 1: Constructive feedback is useful to you. Cheap criticism isn't, and
Speaker 1: so often a lot of what we get. If we
Speaker 1: get a lot of criticism, it's probably because you're doing
Speaker 1: something right. And one of Wayne Bennett's quotes is, if
Speaker 1: you keep listening to the fans, you'll end up being
Speaker 1: sat with them. Number fourteen. Exploit hardship. Every setback is
Speaker 1: a lesson. Every disappointment offers growth when we lose, When
Speaker 1: we fail, it's often the biggest lesson, isn't it. So
Speaker 1: when your team loses and I've still got coaches a mentory,
Speaker 1: do this to contact me when they lose it, never
Speaker 1: contact me when they win. They're going to be really
Speaker 1: careful with that because nothing fails like success, and if
Speaker 1: you lose, it's probably not as bad as it could
Speaker 1: have been, unless you're the Cowboys playing against rusters. Don't
Speaker 1: waste your difficult experiences though, use them. Number fifteen. Be loyal,
Speaker 1: stand by good people, support them in difficult times. Loyalty
Speaker 1: isn't tested when everything is going well. It's tested when
Speaker 1: it isn't. And that goes back to the friendships and
Speaker 1: acquaintances thing I said earlier. Number sixteen. Write things down,
Speaker 1: call it a journal if you want, But how many
Speaker 1: of you write things down? Tea finished? Tea finished? It
Speaker 1: got cold at the end. I think I've told you
Speaker 1: this story before. When I moved from England to Australia,
Speaker 1: I packed two bags and I had a laptop and
Speaker 1: a bag, a laptop bagry. And in that laptop bag
Speaker 1: were four old journals. And I don't write today. I
Speaker 1: did this today. It's just notes. It's training notes. It's
Speaker 1: a highlighted note saying this problem occurred, or that problem occurred,
Speaker 1: or this was good that work that didn't work. And
Speaker 1: I brought them with me to Australia almost twenty years ago,
Speaker 1: when they're still in the cupboard just here. And the
Speaker 1: amount of times in my coaching career I've referred back
Speaker 1: to books, old books like that, because I kept doing them.
Speaker 1: This is a problem that had when I was a manly.
Speaker 1: This is a problem I had when I was at Penrith.
Speaker 1: This is a problem I had at Saint Greg's. This
Speaker 1: is a problem I had at Ipswich. Whatever it may be,
Speaker 1: How did I deal with it? Then I go back
Speaker 1: and I can see what I did that week. So
Speaker 1: log things in a journal, write your ideas, your mistakes,
Speaker 1: your lessons, because your future self thank you, and some
Speaker 1: of your best coaching ideas will be rough notes in
Speaker 1: a book. I'm telling you now, everything is learning. Right
Speaker 1: If you think experience is learning, then log it. Number seventeen,
Speaker 1: don't confuse busy with productive. A rocking horse moves but
Speaker 1: makes no progress. Do not confuse motion and progress. There's
Speaker 1: some jobs I do in my working life that I
Speaker 1: just have to do that are a bit like brushing
Speaker 1: your teeth. There's others that grow me and my business interest.
Speaker 1: When I'm moving forward, I have a good balance of
Speaker 1: the two. When I'm not, I have too much of
Speaker 1: the first one. I guess day you've got to ask
Speaker 1: did you move closer to your goals? Or were you
Speaker 1: just busy? And sometimes we get wrapped up in the
Speaker 1: white noise of things. Don't they so you could be
Speaker 1: at your club and there's so much white noise, so
Speaker 1: much political clap trap, that really you just want to
Speaker 1: get out of there. Number eighteen build something special. On
Speaker 1: the Super League three sixty podcast I've just recorded with
Speaker 1: John Davison, we were talking about if to lose a
Speaker 1: lim peak who went into the Super League. The French
Speaker 1: team were brought into the Super League this year on
Speaker 1: half the television money of everyone else, and I'm talking
Speaker 1: millions of pounds or euros. Right if they finish anything
Speaker 1: up from thirteenth, thirteenth or upwards and team team, they've
Speaker 1: achieved something. If you finished top of the second tier
Speaker 1: the year before and then finish anywhere in the top tier,
Speaker 1: you've actually achieved something that it's not all about winning premierships. Also,
Speaker 1: depending on your level as a club, you might have
Speaker 1: to measure something else. So Crewe Alexandra in football in
Speaker 1: the UK are very famous. They've never played in the
Speaker 1: Premier League. You've probably never heard of them if you're
Speaker 1: not from England, but they're very famous for having such
Speaker 1: a good junior academy that most of the players that
Speaker 1: played in the top divisions for many years came from
Speaker 1: that academy. Your community club would be well known because
Speaker 1: it produces professional players, and you may or may not
Speaker 1: win most of the premierships. There's different ways to measure
Speaker 1: building something special, So don't just chase wins. Build a culture,
Speaker 1: grow people, make better players, better people. There's nothing better
Speaker 1: than hearing when you've built a certain culture around something.
Speaker 1: And I've got a lot of experience doing this at
Speaker 1: different things than hearing that we've had your player lead
Speaker 1: from your school or your club and he or she
Speaker 1: is conducting themselves fantastically. There's nothing better than hearing that
Speaker 1: and they're doing everything we want them to. And if
Speaker 1: you notice there, I've not said anything about playing first
Speaker 1: grade or anything like that. He's hearing that. And there's
Speaker 1: interesting things. Some jobs have left and the to has deteriorated,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that will come down to the
Speaker 1: people in and around the organization, in the leadership hub,
Speaker 1: if you like, but a lot of that comes down
Speaker 1: to recruitment and things like that. So and the standards
Speaker 1: that you keep, what you let go is what you
Speaker 1: allow at the end of the day. And if you
Speaker 1: can leave every team, every club, every school, every player
Speaker 1: better than you found them when you leave wherever you are.
Speaker 1: That's your legacy. Number nineteen. Give credit to other people
Speaker 1: I can promise you as a coach or a club official.
Speaker 1: You can't do it on your own. Success isn't achieved
Speaker 1: just by you. You need assistance. The president of a
Speaker 1: club needs a committee. The coach needs assistance, The coach
Speaker 1: needs players. Recognize you volunteers, recognize your parents that do
Speaker 1: good things, and of course recognize your players. People flourish
Speaker 1: when they feel appreciated. Sometimes all they're trying to get
Speaker 1: is a I like what you're doing now. One of
Speaker 1: the problems about me drinking tea after I've had two coffees,
Speaker 1: I do need a swig of the water. And this
Speaker 1: is where I can thank the Global League Network. And
Speaker 1: if you want to know if this podcast gets edited,
Speaker 1: you know you've got evidence today the amount of times
Speaker 1: you've heard me slurping today. Only unless I make an
Speaker 1: absolute howler, do I take bits out Number twenty celebrate
Speaker 1: the small wins. I I'm a big Manchester City fan
Speaker 1: and Pep Guardiolo, by all accounts, one of the best
Speaker 1: coaches that's ever been in world spawn. When City won
Speaker 1: games at home, the amount of times they did a
Speaker 1: lap of honor, or if they won games away, the
Speaker 1: amount of times they went to see their fans and
Speaker 1: quite significant celebrations, and some media would criticize them and say,
Speaker 1: you know they're celebrating too early. I know one very
Speaker 1: prominent ex footballer criticized England for celebrating quite significantly after
Speaker 1: beating Mexico in the quarter final. It's a small win
Speaker 1: and it's celebrating a small win. If you spend too
Speaker 1: much time chasing the next goal, you'll get tired because
Speaker 1: you're up all the time. You've got to take time
Speaker 1: to enjoy little victories. You identify the little victories that
Speaker 1: you know. It might be a player mastering a new skill.
Speaker 1: It might be a team achieving a try. It might
Speaker 1: be a team showing some resilience. It might be a
Speaker 1: team growing in confidence, a coach growing in confidence. Anything. Basically,
Speaker 1: if there is a twenty first thing, it's about trying
Speaker 1: above all else to be a good human. Right because
Speaker 1: your football career, your rugby league career, will finish one day.
Speaker 1: You're coaching will finish one day, but people will remember
Speaker 1: how you made them feel, whether you help them, whether
Speaker 1: you cared, if you leave them better and in a
Speaker 1: better place than when you found them. Football is a
Speaker 1: lot more than x'es and o's. It's one of the
Speaker 1: first chapters in my book, Great Coaches, No Football. They
Speaker 1: know the exes and hose, they all the tactics, they
Speaker 1: know the answers. The very best coaches are They actually
Speaker 1: change lives and they make things better for everyone. It's
Speaker 1: about having standards before stars, which is my next single.
Speaker 1: Wants to talk about West Tigers. What's true and what's not?
Speaker 1: This this is not what I'm going to talk about.
Speaker 1: There's been claim and counterclaim Adam Dewey refusing to play, apparently,
Speaker 1: and then they did some massaging of the message after that,
Speaker 1: and one podcast says it's the coach's fault. Other podcasts
Speaker 1: say it was a player's folks on and so forth.
Speaker 1: In there are some facts, and I think one of
Speaker 1: the facts is a player didn't play, and therefore it
Speaker 1: looks like he decided not to. I don't think that's
Speaker 1: the disputable. One of the most important coaching philosophies that
Speaker 1: I think any of us worth our soul has is
Speaker 1: that the team and the club must always come first.
Speaker 1: Not your best player, not your biggest name, not your captain,
Speaker 1: not your anything, the team. Now, there are times when
Speaker 1: that shouldn't happen. Well, obviously, if somebody has to put
Speaker 1: their health first, or their well actual real well being first,
Speaker 1: rather than just having a mood, you know, genuine well
Speaker 1: being first. And yes we focus on that person and
Speaker 1: there's a care factor, but ultimately the biggest thing is
Speaker 1: the team in the club and the problem and the
Speaker 1: line is drawn when people start to believe that their
Speaker 1: talent gives them permission to ignore any standards that are
Speaker 1: widely expected in your organization, and your organization might just
Speaker 1: be your team, but also in your setting. And once
Speaker 1: people ignore those things, you've started to lose your culture.
Speaker 1: I've always said on this podcast, I say every week,
Speaker 1: what you walk past is what you allow. What you
Speaker 1: let go is what you allow. Sometimes you have to
Speaker 1: overlook slightly poor behavior because a player can win your
Speaker 1: games sometimes and then you have to balance out with
Speaker 1: how many times you hold your standards and knowing it
Speaker 1: might cost you in the short term. For me, that
Speaker 1: decision is actually quite simple. A lot of the time,
Speaker 1: standards are only standards if they apply to everyone. Now,
Speaker 1: there'll always be somebody who tests those standards, and it
Speaker 1: depends how far away they fail that test. I have
Speaker 1: coached some very elite players who struggled to put one
Speaker 1: foot in front of the other and the rest of
Speaker 1: their lives right. And I've had rules where if a
Speaker 1: player didn't turn up training for a genuine reason, as
Speaker 1: long as we knew within a certain timeframe there was
Speaker 1: a genuine reason, we were going to look favorably on that.
Speaker 1: And there's been you know, it's happened occasionally. But there's
Speaker 1: one player in particular who was ultra elite, played an
Speaker 1: RL right, didn't show up one day and I called him.
Speaker 1: His first words were sorry, I had known nothing on
Speaker 1: my phone to contact you. I'm really sick. And all
Speaker 1: my players knew how integral is was. They also knew
Speaker 1: he was a working progress off the field. So I
Speaker 1: said a few to a few of the senior players,
Speaker 1: this has happened. Do you mind if I give him
Speaker 1: a little bit of leeway? And they basically said, yeah,
Speaker 1: but not too much. But I can't do it much more.
Speaker 1: I went all right, So I rang the player back
Speaker 1: and said, listen, if anyone asked you contacted me. Two
Speaker 1: hours before the session. That player appreciated that if you
Speaker 1: look at the story of that player, he'd spent most
Speaker 1: of his time doing that to coaches who then just
Speaker 1: cut him, who said it was down to his skin.
Speaker 1: I didn't say it to him, but put it down
Speaker 1: to his skin color, his background, his culture, and all
Speaker 1: people like him are like that. Instead, what he got
Speaker 1: off me as a coach with some love and some
Speaker 1: don't worry, mate, there's some support here. He never missed
Speaker 1: another session because he realized somebody cared. So you've also
Speaker 1: got to look at the crime. Now. Adam Dower apparently
Speaker 1: refused to play. I'm sorry, I don't care what the context.
Speaker 1: That can't happen. Discipline isn't about punishment either. It's about trust.
Speaker 1: It's about everybody in the organization knowing it what's expected
Speaker 1: of them. And when everyone knows those expectations, everyone also
Speaker 1: knows the consequences, and that gives certainty and it creates trust.
Speaker 1: And every player you have is either adding to your
Speaker 1: culture or taking away from it. There's no neutral. And
Speaker 1: the way everybody trains influences other people. The way everybody
Speaker 1: speaks influences others. The way everybody applies effort influences others,
Speaker 1: body language influences others. Everything is contagious in a group,
Speaker 1: and that's why you, as a coach have to guard
Speaker 1: the environment every single day. People who are continually ignoring
Speaker 1: standards by one percent and not being pulled up about
Speaker 1: it can undo months of hard work in no time,
Speaker 1: and that's why coaching is about developing people sometimes before
Speaker 1: developing footballers. Teams that consistently are successful have the fact
Speaker 1: that they know who they are and what they stand for,
Speaker 1: and they're protecting those standards in common. That's there's not
Speaker 1: a club who's successful who doesn't have those things. And
Speaker 1: discipline doesn't start when something goes wrong. It starts from
Speaker 1: the start, and it starts from you clearly explaining your expectations.
Speaker 1: It starts from the start of your pre season, it
Speaker 1: starts from the start of every training session, and you've
Speaker 1: got to explain them, tell your players why they matter,
Speaker 1: involve leaders, and then you've got to be consistent. What
Speaker 1: you let go is what you allow. If you say
Speaker 1: training is at six and players turn up at two
Speaker 1: minutes past six and just walk into training, soon that
Speaker 1: two minutes past six will be seven minutes past six,
Speaker 1: and it won't just be that person, and you can't
Speaker 1: argue with them because they can't be accountable for things
Speaker 1: that they've never been taught. They can't know the criteria.
Speaker 1: They can't be held to criteria that they don't know.
Speaker 1: And it's not a slogan on your dressing room wall.
Speaker 1: It's all about behaviors that you reward when they happen,
Speaker 1: and that you refuse to accept when they don't. So
Speaker 1: where's my challenge for everyone of your listening. If I
Speaker 1: asked every player in your team to write down what
Speaker 1: your team's non negotiable standards were, how many of them
Speaker 1: would write the same number. Let's say it was three.
Speaker 1: Let's say you've got three non negotiables, arrive on time,
Speaker 1: do your best, respect your teammates right. How many of
Speaker 1: your players would all write the same thing. And if
Speaker 1: they don't, maybe it's because they can't write, but also
Speaker 1: it's probably not been communicated clearly enough. In great teams,
Speaker 1: everybody lives the standards, everyone knows the standards, and everyone
Speaker 1: protects them. And that's what being team first is really about.
Speaker 1: In that list of twenty things earlier at the top
Speaker 1: of the podcast, one of them was about finding strengths
Speaker 1: in your players, and I think as coaches we need
Speaker 1: to stop fighting them. Many of us try and coach
Speaker 1: players to become something they're not. We often spend time
Speaker 1: fixing weaknesses that we forget to maximize the strengths. So
Speaker 1: work out what your players good at. Are they a
Speaker 1: good runner? Have they got great vision? Are they an organizer?
Speaker 1: Are the relentless defender who wants to get stuck in
Speaker 1: all the time? Are they're good at support play? Are
Speaker 1: they good at picking and choosing when they go? Your
Speaker 1: job as a coach is to work out what they're
Speaker 1: good at first, not what you wish they were good at,
Speaker 1: what they're actually good at. I always challenge the thought
Speaker 1: who says you're six or seven after organize everything might
Speaker 1: do other players who can see things. And as a coach,
Speaker 1: you've got to try and work out whose strengths areware
Speaker 1: and then you need to put them in a position
Speaker 1: where they can repeat that strength and give them a
Speaker 1: game plan, role and everything else to help that. Instinctive
Speaker 1: footballers can't become robotic, or shouldn't be taught to become
Speaker 1: robotic robotic and robotic players can't ultimately become instincts. It's
Speaker 1: a instinctive. It's a it's a process. Stop putting square
Speaker 1: pegs in round holes. So you're coaching homework as week is.
Speaker 1: I suppose think about every player in your squad and
Speaker 1: if you were to describe every sentence in a sentence, sorry,
Speaker 1: all their biggest strengths, and then marry that up with
Speaker 1: if you're getting them to do those or carry out
Speaker 1: those strengths repeatedly, then that would be great. I like
Speaker 1: talking on this podcast, but you can find thousands of
Speaker 1: coaches coaching resources at Rugbyleague coach dot com to tell
Speaker 1: you or want you to keep coaching, keep learning and
Speaker 1: keep your players becoming the best version of themselves. I
Speaker 1: do all sorts of things. I help clubs put in
Speaker 1: long term development models. Quite frankly, have created from virtually
Speaker 1: scratched to the biggest rugby league schools in Australia that
Speaker 1: are still successful now or mostly successful. So they're the
Speaker 1: ones that everybody can see. But there's others that have
Speaker 1: set up that nobody knows I was involved with because
Speaker 1: we did it at the grassroots and put in long
Speaker 1: term strategy. Every club that is sustainable in terms of
Speaker 1: its success are e longer than the season has a
Speaker 1: plan and they stick to it. Every club that fails
Speaker 1: has a plan that they throw out the door or
Speaker 1: they don't have one. And then every time a club
Speaker 1: leadership changes or somebody changes in a position, everything changes.
Speaker 1: So if you need help with that, reach out. Also.
Speaker 1: I'm doing a lot of coach mentoring at the minute
Speaker 1: where I'm helping coaches deliver sessions, and I have the
Speaker 1: ability now to work with you as a club or
Speaker 1: a region if budget is available or if budget isn't available,
Speaker 1: So just get in touch. One of the people who
Speaker 1: worked with me two weeks ago, Nick from Neandra Lizards said,
Speaker 1: I've been coaching for twelve years now, and the way
Speaker 1: Lee broke down us basic games and drills and even
Speaker 1: the tactics in one session was amazing. I wish I'd
Speaker 1: been to this before I started coaching. Thanks for coming
Speaker 1: way out here. So geography isn't a problem, will get
Speaker 1: it sorted. Jason from the yank O Wa Moonhawks added,
Speaker 1: I suddenly enjoyed the Coaches Night hosted by Lee. The
Speaker 1: evening was positive, engaging, and beneficial for me or somebody
Speaker 1: looking to develop my coaching. I gained valuable knowledge about
Speaker 1: what it takes to be an effective coach in terms
Speaker 1: of communication, building confidence and creating a positive environment. Lee
Speaker 1: was knowledgeable, shared practical advice and I can apply it
Speaker 1: straight away. I left feeling more confident, motivated and inspired
Speaker 1: to continue my own journey. So I want to hear
Speaker 1: about anybody who's passionate about growing the game wherever you are,
Speaker 1: particularly in country rugby league. And anybody who needs thinks
Speaker 1: to the bush and the remote areas need more support.
Speaker 1: So don't we in the past, or we've spoken in
Speaker 1: the past, and last week I read out some areas
Speaker 1: and I'm going to do it again now. Sussex, sim Orange, Tormina,
Speaker 1: Coffs Harbor, Woggouga, parks More Port, Mcquarie, Portland, Central table Lands, Wumba,
Speaker 1: Clarence Valley, Now South Coast, Tweedheads, Queenby and Meadowey, Corlette Port, Stephens, Oldbury,
Speaker 1: ben or A Point, Northern Rivers in New South Wales.
Speaker 1: In Queensland, Cairnes, Youranger, Tugan, p Alba, anywhere in Harvey Bay,
Speaker 1: anywhere in Fraser Coast, Mackay, Uton Bay, Belmore, Luckier Valley,
Speaker 1: Murphy's Creek, Hamilton Island and Wit some days in general.
Speaker 1: If any of you are listening from there, just get
Speaker 1: in touch with me. Let's have a yak, let's see
Speaker 1: what we can do. I think you'll be amazed by
Speaker 1: some of the options on Rugby League coach dot com.
Speaker 1: To say you at the moment, there's so many discounts
Speaker 1: right so mentoring, I can mentor with you for the
Speaker 1: end of the season for a small retainer and we
Speaker 1: set a target and if we reach it, then you
Speaker 1: pay the full amount. If you don't. If we don't
Speaker 1: reach it, you don't. You can also come on for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven at a discounted rate now and we
Speaker 1: can do your pre season and everything together. Clubs who
Speaker 1: want to come on board, I can give you that
Speaker 1: at a better rate now if you're like, this is
Speaker 1: the time of the year where everyone's getting a bit
Speaker 1: over rugby league in some cases, so it's now a
Speaker 1: good time to jump on. In terms of online packages,
Speaker 1: you can get a yearly coach membership to Rugby League
Speaker 1: coach dot com to tay you from the ninety nine dollars.
Speaker 1: You can get full access to the whole thing, so
Speaker 1: that includes strength and conditioning, player coaching as well, so
Speaker 1: many resources you can get that for a year for
Speaker 1: two hundred dollars, lifetime for three hundred and sixty nine dollars.
Speaker 1: I always say in England, just half it into pounds
Speaker 1: to get pounds, and then some of the bigger plans
Speaker 1: are around about the five hundred dollar mark. So look,
Speaker 1: most of it is half price now. So now it's
Speaker 1: the time to jump on to get yourself ready for
Speaker 1: twenty twenty seven and for that off season and the
Speaker 1: time off where so told you should consume whatever you
Speaker 1: can consume. Please listen out for the Super League three
Speaker 1: sixty podcasts later today if you're interested. Please also listen
Speaker 1: out to the Loose Carry podcast with Zero Tackle, where
Speaker 1: I talk about some some NRL issues I had that
Speaker 1: much prepared to go in this podcast that I've got
Speaker 1: some things left over for next week too. How goods
Speaker 1: are so listen coaches, you know I love your work.
Speaker 1: I say that every week. Take care and please remember
Speaker 1: that this podcast may come out a bit later for
Speaker 1: the next few weeks, just because of my own working life.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just please let me know if that's a problem.
Speaker 1: If it is a problem, I will double down on
Speaker 1: my efforts to get it out earlier and back to
Speaker 1: the normal time, Take care, keep doing what you're doing
Speaker 1: in